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Who's Who - Paolo Boselli

Although aged 78 when he came to power
as Prime Minister in June 1916, Paolo Boselli (1838-1932) was appointed at
the head of Italy's first wartime national coalition government.

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Born on 8 June 1838 in
Savona, Piedmont, Boselli was the first professor of science at the
University of Rome prior to entering politics. He served for 51 years
as a liberal rightist parliamentary deputy, and as a senator from 1921.

Appointed Minister of
Education in 1888, Boselli reorganised the Bank of Italy with his next
portfolio, as Minister of the Treasury in 1899. He also served in
Sidney Sonnino's 1906 government.

Although in semi-retirement
when war broke out in Europe in August 1914, Boselli spoke out firmly in
favour of war on the side of the Allies (despite Italy's nominal association
with the Central Powers). With
Antonio Salandra's
decision to enter the war on
23
May 1915 Boselli made an important speech in the chamber in favour of
granting Salandra additional powers.

With a reputation as
something of a political fixer, and with evident political seniority,
Boselli's name quickly became a leading candidate for the vacated office of
Prime Minister, despite his advancing age, once Salandra has resigned
following military defeat at the
Trentino in June 1916.

With a determined focus to
promote national unity during wartime, Boselli took care to ensure a broad
spectrum of political views in his enlarged cabinet, including liberals,
clerics as well as conservatives. Inevitably however he was unable to
please all political factions, and he lacked the energy to pull the
disparate elements together in the wartime cause.

He was criticised by
pacifists for allowing the conservative Sonnino to continue to drive Italian
foreign policy, and also drew complaints from the right for refusing to
clamp down on the dissident press or to put down strikes in the north of the
country.

Boselli, like his
predecessor, proved entirely unable to exert any form of control over his
autocratic Chief of Staff,
Luigi Cadorna.

With the economic situation
declining the fate of Boselli's government was sealed by the military
disaster at Caporetto in October 1917. He was voted from office on 25
October and replaced by
Vittorio Orlando; the fiasco at Caporetto also claimed Cadorna's head.

Retaining his parliamentary
seat until 1921 before becoming a senator the following year, Boselli
embraced Benito Mussolini and his fascist policies after the war, acting as
his spokesman in the upper house in March 1928 over the bill to approve the
Lateran treaties between Italy and Rome.